Dear Comrades! We were all extremely pleased by your thorough letter.

Please send us as quickly as possible the promised additions and maintain correspondence more frequently.

We hope soon to send one of our comrades to you for more detailed and final negotiations, but for now we shall confine ourselves to the most important matters.

You are absolutely right a thousand times over that we must unite as quickly as possible and immediately into a single organization of all-Russian character, which sets itself the goal of preparing ideological unity among the committees and practical, organizational unity of the party. For our part, we have already taken quite important steps in this direction thanks to the fact that the Petersburg Committee has become fully Iskrist, issued a printed declaration to this effect, and de facto (this is, of course, strictly entre nous*) merged with the Russian organization of *Iskra*, giving its members the most influential positions in the central group of the committee. If we achieve such complete solidarity and

* — between us. Ed.

complete merger with the South, then the question of the party's factual unification will be advanced 3/4 of the way toward its realization. We must hurry very much with this. We are immediately taking measures, firstly, to arrange for members of the Russian organization of *Iskra* to come to you for agreement; secondly, to establish contact here with Chernishev. For your part, hasten the publication (or placement in *Iskra*) of your principled declaration, which fully defines your position in the party, and take all measures for factual merger with the Russian organization of *Iskra*. In conclusion — a few words about the questions you have raised. Concerning the peasantry and agrarian program, it remains unclear to us precisely what you are dissatisfied with in our draft agrarian program and what changes you would desire. Define this more precisely. Have you seen no. 4 of *Zarya* with the article on the agrarian program?*

In general, your remarks concerning the failures of *Iskra* testify to how important it is for us to increase and regulate relations between us so that we are completely in accord. We have so terribly few forces that only the very closest unification of all Social-Democrats can assure us success in the struggle both against the "adventurists" and against the government. And meanwhile, about your viewpoint, for example, about your practical work, we have known almost nothing until now — is this normal? Is it also normal that you, for instance, are now taking steps for organizing transport by yourselves, while we are also doing so by ourselves? (Write in more detail about how, what, and where you are undertaking things, what resources you have, etc.). This very circumstance, i.e., the shortage of forces, must be taken into account when discussing the question of a separate organ, of continuing *Southern Worker*, of transforming it into *Russian Worker*. One must weigh very carefully all aspects of the matter. Think about where the forces are for two organs, when we know perfectly well that there are few even for one. Will you not give an impetus to Petersburg (the non-Iskrist elements of Petersburg) to publish *Workers' Thought* as likewise a "popular," "educational," etc. organ — and this at the very moment when Petersburg is preparing

* See V. I. Lenin. Collected Works, 5th ed., vol. 6, pp. 303-348. Ed.